Dewhurst’s border agent ballistics claim false, PolitiFact says

Positioning himself as a border issues Texas conservative, US Senate hopeful and Texas Lt. Gov., David Dewhurst blasted Attorney General Eric Holder last month for the US government’s failure to control its “gun walking” operations in US/Mexican border regions such as Arizona and Texas.

In a post on his campaign website, Dewhurst claims “ballistic tests have confirmed that the death of at least one U.S. Border Patrol agent was caused by one of the DOJ-walked weapons.”

The claim would mean more negative fallout from Operation Fast and Furious and other gun-walking operations on the US/Mexican border… if it were true.

Citing work by the Los Angeles Times who obtained FBI ballistics tests, PolitiFact lays bare Dewhurst’s claim that a border patrol agent was killed by a bullet fired from a Fast and Furious rifle found at the scene of the Arizona shooting.

According to the FBI ballistic reports, “due to a lack of sufficient agreement in the individual microscopic marks of value, it could not be determined if the… bullet was fired from the barrel of the… rifles.”

Although two rifles found at the scene were a part of the government’s Fast and Furious “gun walking” operation – an operation where gun traffickers were allowed to purchase firearms while under heavy surveillance in order to track their buyers – Dewhurst’s claim that the bullet that killed an Arizona border patrol agent came from one of the rifles, seems to be false.

Dewhurst did not return calls for comment, but the Lt. Gov. seems to stand by his statements as the post on his website has not been removed or amended since it was created on December 13, 2011.

In a press release which highlights the high-profile nature and increased public scrutiny of “gun walking” operations on the US/Mexican border, the FBI said they are making “significant progress” in identifying and capturing the assailant believed to have killed the Arizona agent.

The FBI did not return calls for comment on this report, as the bureau has historically done due to the nature of an on-going investigation.